St. Paul, Arkansas principal Daisy Dyer Duerr was invited to speak before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on behalf of rural schools prior to their successful 3-2 vote to increase funding for the E-Rate program. The vote will ensure that an additional 408,000 in her state will have access to high-speed broadband Internet and Wi-Fi access in their classrooms.

Duerr, who was named an NASSP Digital Principal earlier this year, shared the story of her school’s success in using technology to greatly improve student achievement. When she became the principal of the 225-student K-12 campus in 2011, the high school was being targeted by the state for poor test scores in literacy and math, and the elementary grades had just been removed from Arkansas’ school improvement roles. (more…)

In an effort to ensure that more schools have access to high-speed broadband and wireless connections, NASSP has submitted comments in response to a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the E-Rate program that was issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on July 23. NASSP also signed on to comments submitted by the Education and Libraries Network Coalition (EdLiNC), a group comprised of the leading public and private education associations and the American Library Association that was formed to promote and improve the E-Rate program to fulfill its mission of accelerating the deployment of advanced telecommunications and information services in schools and libraries. (more…)